The Aged Lion

Everyone's heard about Pompeii, Italy. August 24th, 79AD, Mother Nature chose to demonstrate her tremendous power (namely Mt. Vesuvius). What you may not know is that this story has played out several times throughout history. Perhaps less dramatically, perhaps with varying results, but occurred it has. Central America kind of has it's own version of Pompeii's story. It is the tale of "Old Léon" in Nicaragua.

Léon Viejo (Old Léon) was founded way back in 1524. Now that might not seem very old to some, but remember this is a Spanish colonial town, and Columbus only arrived in 1492. So actually, in terms of European settlements in the Americas, it doesn't get much older than Leon Viejo. But Old Léon got off to a bit of a rough start. I suppose decapitating your founder 2 years after the founding of the city would qualify as "rough". Settlers thought they had a great location for a city. Right on the shores of Lake Managua trade would be easy. And the city had a magnificent view of a local mountain. Unfortunately, this "mountain" (aka, Momotombo Volcano) had a bit of an attitude. Between 1594 and 1610, the volcano had a variety of shakes and sputterences. The last of which saw the town disappear into nothingness.

That would be the more romantic ending. The towns people frozen in time in a blanket of ash and fire. But it wasn't quite like that. While the eruptions were significant, it actually just freaked out the locals enough for them to pick up and move shop down the road to the site of "New Léon". But it did take several hundred years to find the town again. It was only re-discovered in 1967.

Even with it's Unesco World Heritage listing, i'm not so sure the site is worth the effort of getting there. From Leon's bus station, buses leave for La Paz Centro. La Paz is a cute little artist town, but the station is on the outskirts. From there, you connect to another bus to Puerto Momotombo, the village now occupying the area around the former Léon. The trip seems long and is definitely hot, but at least it's cheap. The bus does eventually wind it's way to the old city's gate, but i think it's more fun to get off early and wander through the very rural community of Puerto Momotombo. The site itself is a couple dollars, and there is supposed to be a Spanish speaking guide. But he wasn't available when i showed up. I took all of 15 minutes walking around the partially excavated ruins. Hardly a thriller. At least the site was reasonably well labelled.

Likely the highlight of the trip are the great views of Momotombo volcano, Nicaragua's unofficial symbol. The village is cute. But the ruins are very ordinary and even the most enthusiastic amateur archeologist would have a tough time getting excited. With plenty of time to blow in the region, this is a fairly straight forward trip either on your own or on a tour. But there are better things to occupy your time in Nicaragua.